Trade Talk

The EU Confederation of Food and Drink Industries (CIAA), in a memorandum to the European Commission (EC), reiterates calls to reduce administrative burdens. The food industry has been demanding this for at least 20 years, and little has been achieved. Despite UK government and EC acceptance that there is a problem, the amount of legislation has spiralled.

The CIAA says the cost of complying with legislation is hitting research and development, yet retail shelves are full of new products. There are other reasons for rising costs - bigger bills for raw materials, energy, interest rates, transport and animal feed, for example. These are more significant than red tape costs, which are hard to measure.

Repeated invitations from the UK government and the EC to the food and agrifood industry to identify burdensome regulation that could and should be improved have yielded little response. The government has been slow to act, even when presented with a quick hit. For example, 20 years ago, retailers complained that the Game Act 1831 contained licensing provisions intended to control sales of poached game - irrelevant for today's supermarkets. The Act was not repealed until 2007.

As we all agree there is too much red tape already, no new measures should be entertained, particularly if designed to protect minority interests when there are other viable options for people to protect themselves. For instance, people cannot be expected to protect themselves against unhygienic manufacturing, but they can in areas where there is information to exercise choice.

Just as the government was wrong to presume poorer people had worse diets than the rest, it could be wrong to presuppose that consumers cannot work things out for themselves.

Clare Cheney​ is director general at the Provision Trade Federation​